Doug Barry

Question: Do you like literature? Yes, of course you do, how silly of me to ask. Do you also like monsters, provided they're menacing someone who is not you? Uh-huh, and what about psychosexual horror flicks? If you can emphatically check all these off under your "things that are awesome to me" list, then you will be quite please to learn that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Showtime has given a series commitment to a period drama from John Logan and Sam Mendes called Penny Dreadful, which will feature Dr. Frankenstein, his monster, Dorian Gray, Van Helsing, and presumably some female protagonists because 19th-century literature was not a paranormal circle jerk.

Logan and Mendes most recently collaborated on Skyfall, which was pretty m'ok as James Bond movies go. The network is already selling Penny Dreadful as "psychosexual horror" in Victorian England, and the only thing that could really ruin this whole project is if the people who were involved with making The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen get their grubby paws all over it.